Mumbai: A day after Olive Ridley turtles returned to hatch at Versova beach after a 20-year hiatus, the Forest Department is looking into the possibility of more turtle nests being present at the beach.
Among the 97 eggs that were found in a four-feet deep pit at the beach on March 22, 84 eggs hatched of which four turtles were stillborn. The remaining 13 eggs didn’t hatch at all.
On Friday, the Forest Department took the dead turtles and unhatched eggs to conduct further lab tests to ascertain the cause of death. Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Vasudevan N. said, “The mortality rate is usually up to 10% and is likely to go up due to genetic issues. External factors don’t really result in the death of the turtles.”
Mr. Vasudevan said the dead turtles and unhatched eggs were found on Thursday evening. “The possibility of having more pits at the beach is quite likely. We have deployed some officials at the site to look into it,” he said. All eggs were found in one pit suggesting they belonged to a single turtle.
Environmentalist raises doubt
Envirinmentalist Stalin D, suspected that it is very unlikely, for a single turtle to travel alone and dig a perfectly rectangular pit which is more than three feet deep and lay eggs in it. “On an average, such pits are not deeper than a foot and a half. The nests are irregular or close to a cone in shape as the turtles dig it using their hand flippers and cover the pit, using the same. The pit that was at Versova was a sharp pit with proper edges and corners.”
Mr. Stalin claimed that for the turtles to nest so close to the beach was also extremely unlikely as they choose to nest at least 15-20 kilometer away from the reach of the waves. “The pit is surrounded by a cultivation area that is used by the surrounding slum dwellers to cultivate fenugreek (methi) it further raises the suspicion as the turtles don’t nest in areas that have alot of human hustle around it,” Mr. Stalin said backing his suspicion.
Mr. Vasudevan however disregarded the suspicion saying that it is scientifically proven that the turtles come back to the beach where they were hatched. Because Versova was a nesting beach around two decades ago, there is a major possibility that the mother turtle was hatched at the same beach.
“About the height of the pit, there is possibility that the pit was already there when the turtle came to lay the eggs as the slum dwellers, around it dig such pits for their cultivation purposes,” Mr. Vasudevan said.
The Olive Ridley turtles are also known as Pacific Ridley turtles are they are found in Pacifica and Indian oceans. The regular nesting sites in India for the endangered species are Garhimatha beach near Kendripara in Odisha and Velas beach in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra. The turtles are about 2 feet long and 50 kilograms heavy, where are the babies are only upto 10 centimeters, weighing around 30-75 grams.
According to the locals, who cultivate near the nesting site, there were over 200 turtles that came of the pit but as soon as the people near the beach discovered them at 8 a.m, they picked up many of them and only 95-100 turtles were left by the time the forest officials reached the spot at 10 a.m.
